Honour Thyself, is the words that strongly resonant through me whenever I speak to this cool guy … I recently got the wonderful opportunity to interview S.A celeb, fitness lover, psychologist and all around good guy, Pierre De Villiers who gives us some awesome tips and advice around weight loss and the psychology behind it.

S:You hold several titles in South Africa like the first Mr Commonwealth SA Semi Finalist and Global Mandela Ambassador, please can you give us some insight in to your journey to attaining those titles?

P: People are always so impressed by titles. Titles is the 2017 updated “Apartheid” filters of the global village. It positions us all as we hang out together. What you do is more important than who you are. When meeting someone for the first time we forget their name in seconds while pondering on their impressive CEO title or Professor title or HRH title. We somehow forget who they are and focus on their importance. The more titles, the more important, the higher their social standing. The higher their social standing, the more power they have. Let’s have a look at my titles.

I am a FORBES acclaim Author, TV Presenter and Mr Commonwealth SA semi-finalist – as you said. I am also a LinkedIn World Influencer, Forward Thinker and Innovator listed with Branson and Gates on the 500+ most influential people in 2017. I am South Africa’s top Dream Translator to the Stars, TV Celebrity Psychotherapist and Unconscious Symbology Specialist. I am the Global Nelson Mandela Ambassador, Mandela-double decorated with medals for Outstanding Service to post-Apartheid South Africa and the Youngest Editor of the SA Military Medical Journal. I am a University Lecturer and my ultimate qualification is a PhD in Life.

S: What advice can you give to people who have goals but feel that they cannot achieve them, or feel unworthy?

P: Self-worth equals Nett-Worth. If Winfrey didn’t think she was good at TV, then she wouldn’t own her own TV network. If I don’t think that I am good at Psychology I am of little use to my Bollywood and La La Land Skype clients. To answer the question, the single most important thing to focus on is expanding your Self-Worth (your emotions, feelings and inner-world) as to see how it then by default expands your Nett-Worth (your German luxury car, your holiday home and property portfolio).

S: You are a former Television presenter and also a psychology specialist, how did your passion for media, shape your personality?

P: Media is Power. I learnt this at a young age when I landed my first TV-role. As soon as I was on TV the world opened their doors for me like never before. Suddenly I was invited to VIP lunches and launches, to the opening of prestigious shopping malls and envelopes. The exact same people who ignored me before were now reaching out to me for my acceptance.

As incarnated Source Beings we are also Human Beings. That means we need to be 50 Percent Source-only focused in Spirit, while at the same time living a daily life 50 Percent Human-only focused on Earth Reality, paying the bills etc. Source wants us to experience the 7 billion combination variables of our oil-and-water Source Beings expressed as Human Beings Journey.

At first I changed my lifestyle and started making healthy choices. I couldn’t walk more than a few meters before I had to stop and catch my breath. – Pierre De Villiers

It’s a difficult task as we have two people inside us all. There is the “who I have to be to survive” persona at the office and there is the “who I really am” persona on weekends. Interesting to note how much happier the real you feels on weekends, isn’t it? In Psychology it is also called the “Adapted Self” and the “True Self”. Shakespeare proclaimed: “Be true to Thyselves!” and strangely he is still of interest to people in 2017.

Back to your question and how my passion for media shaped my personality is simple. I use TV and Media Celebrity to apply my True Self in a way that is comfortable for my following and conducive to furthering my public figure success.

S: Hmm and for the burning question everyone wants to know! On social media you said that you have lost 40kgs in 6 months! I am sure that was the result of nothing less than tremendous hard work and dedication, but please enlighten us on the process from losing all of that weight in such a short time span?

P: Fat sucks! I secretly always viewed my overweight clients as having a lack of self-discipline, self-respect or willpower. Obesity is killing mankind on two levels. Firstly, it physically makes you sick (I had to get help for my lower back last year from the enormity of my belly weight). Secondly, it causes an emotional death experience where the phone stops ringing, the invites disappear along with the “friends” as it leaves us ill and depressed.

If I could push two magic buttons in 2017 to help all of mankind, it would be the delete buttons for ill and depressed. That was me last year as I became ‘obese’ in the public eye. I resigned from T.V in a DSTV soapie knowing that fat is career suicide in a looks-obsessed industry. I then took a 9 months sabbatical as I am fortunate not to have to earn a living. I used the first 3 months of my sabbatical to hide away from friends, family, media and all press interviews. I needed to figure out a way to lose enormous weight enormously fast and I did.

Obviously, at first I changed my lifestyle and started making healthy choices. I couldn’t walk more than a few meters before I had to stop and catch my breath. So, I just added a meter every day and soon I was walking down the road to the neighbours. Moderation is key. Balance brings Beauty. I reduced my mountain size portion meals by using a side plate to dish up my food and I used Chinese chop sticks to slow down my eating speed.

I did loads of research on the web and used what resonated. One example, is that I discovered the stomach can enlarge or reduce itself in size. This is done with retraining the stomach to send the “I am full” signals to the brain. You are looking at 20 minutes on average for the “I am full” signals to transmit from the stomach and reach the brain. Gulp down a double burger and maybe another one or two in 20 minutes and obesity awaits. Eat small portions and retrain yourself in the way you eat. Small portions are dished up of a balanced variety of nutrient-rich food. This portion is eaten by setting the table for one, sitting down and you turning eating into a Sacred Ritual to look forward to.

I reduced my mountain size portion meals by using a side plate to dish up my food and I used Chinese chop sticks to slow down my eating speed. – Pierre De Villiers

These days I look forward to eating as a ceremonial privilege like getting ready for bed and savouring every mouth full of good, healthy food.

Small baby steps soon overcomes Obesity – added to Psychology, Nutrition, Belief Systems, Self-Worth… the list is endless. I used my influence to reach the world key players in Eating Psychology, Nutrition and Medicine (both Western and Eastern). I have an extraordinary ability to condense a buffet of information into a single bite-size and user-friendly application. This is perfected after a decade of hours of doing psychotherapy for clients. It simply works better if the client leaves with a single thought rather than an hour long lecture to remember.

There’s a bottomless Titanic of Weight-Loss information available. I simply “zip-filed” these mountains of information into a simple Anti-Obesity equation for my own individual fit (no pun) and the weight dropped off faster than I could buy smaller sizes to wear.

S: Like I asked in the first question, what drives you. What drove you to focusing your time and energy to sculpt your body to such detail?

P: I love experimenting. The human experience has over 7 billion variables and most people follow one variables for one life. I have lived an endless amount of lives in one life. I hate mediocrity and love extremes; like absolute poverty when I was unemployed before TV years ago and then spending a week at the 5 star Beverly Hills Tsogo Heaven in Umhlanga in the Presidential Suite recently.

I grew up as a fat and awkward child – feeling miserable and alone – to then be signed by one of the top modelling agencies later in my life. So, re-invention is the strive to perfect things and it’s a natural gift. Someone once said: “Pierre brings out the best in people” and that is true. It is easily done stepping out of the drone of me-thinking and getting to really know the people around you. There’s a lot that others can teach us and I learn as much from my psychotherapy clients as they do from me.

Eat small portions and retrain yourself in the way you eat. Small portions are dished up of a balanced variety of nutrient-rich food. – Pierre De Villiers

S: Prior to losing the weight, where you unhappy with yourself? Or experienced some sort of doubt with yourself as a person?

P: Absolutely. We live in times where we as humans are in a state of Constant Overwhelm.

Created by the IT era came an overload of data and information bombarding us every moment of the day to a point of saturation. Our brain is busy frying as we struggle to cope. We are so exhausted from absorbing information that we forget our spouse’s birthday – if it wasn’t for our Facebook reminders. In this state of Collective Overwhelm for mankind, we develop new diseases, mental disorders, etc due to the IT explosion that is needed for us to evolve. No-one has built a bridge yet between being human and living our much needed IT lives. Not having time to take care of ourselves anymore (such as a walk in the park or sitting at the fireplace lost in thought with no concept of time) we have little choice than to eat.

Eating is the last remaining frontier of the pre-IT age of taking care of ourselves. Now we simply don’t have the time to take care of ourselves. Coffee-on-the-go with masses of over-refined (again to save digesting time) food has become the norm. Those few seconds of “swallow now and chew later” is all that we have to feel human while most of us struggle just to get by, pay the bills, survive, raise the kids and hope the husband isn’t having an affair. Of course we are going to milk those moments of eating to the maximum with food volume. This easily explains why food has become our link as humans needing to survive in the IT Era: WE EAT WHAT WE FEEL AND WHAT WE FEEL IS PERMANENT-OVERWHELM!

Overwhelm (or “too much” in simple English) leads to over-eat disorders and there you have global Obesity as outcome due to the lack of any other bridge to connect the inner and outer world of the average human daily experience in 2017. Soon we will have to figure one out or go extinct.

S: What advice can you give to someone who wants to have a fit body but is finding it difficult to maintain their weight or eat correctly?

P: Dig deeper. Two words to give people a grip on their lives. Your eating is a result of a bigger problem. Spend time to figure out why you eat and what it represents for you in the 7 billion equation that will soon be a one-click app of living a happy, healthy life I believe.

These days I look forward to eating as a ceremonial privilege like getting ready for bed and savouring every mouth full of good, healthy food. – Pierre De Villiers

S: Take us into a day in the life of Pierre De Villiers. What do you do that keeps you always happy, smiling and fit?

P: If you feel happy, smiling and fit inside then it shows outside. People need to start pampering themselves and life will echo it back to them. You don’t need expensive day spas if you can’t afford the time or expense. Have a 15 minute deep-soak bath before bed. Invest a teensy bit of money in some bubble bath and just EXHALE!! The human species is out of breath and must learn to breathe again. Balance, moderation, self-care and a little faith go a long way to having a better life. Lastly, do what our great hero Nelson Mandela told you to do – NOT PLAYING SMALL is the secret to my success!